CultureShock! Cambodia

Peter North

Description

CultureShock! Cambodia provides all the essential information one needs to make settling into this once war-torn country as painless as possible. Benefit from the practical advice provided including how to find accommodation and employment, which schools to put your children in as well as the documentation required when applying for the various facilities and licences. Discover what to do when encountering monks with mobile phones and how to ride a motorcycle taxi Cambodian-style. Learn more about the Cambodian people and understand the irony behind their warm and friendly nature. Grasp the basics of the Khmer language and browse through the list of places to explore especially the infamous Angkor Wat. CultureShock! Cambodia is a valuable guide for anyone who wants to visit or stay in this beautiful country of Cambodia.

Sujets

• Camboya
• Cambodia

Informations

• Publié par: MarshallCavendishM
• Date de parution: 01 août 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814408912
• Langue: English

Extrait

Introduction



The Cambodia Temple

Contents First Impressions Fast Facts Resource Guide Culture Quiz Further Reading More Cultureshock! Apps

A few years ago, the outside world knew little about Cambodia. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge communists staged a successful revolution and the borders were closed to foreigners. Few people entered the country and even fewer got out. There were disquieting rumours of social upheaval in the country, but very little hard news. Only gradually, over the next 20 years, did the borders reopen.
In the last few years, this picture has changed. In 2002, the Cambodian government dubbed 2003, ‘Visit Cambodia Year’. The country opened its doors to the world, and the world dropped in for a visit. Once best known for the award-winning movie, The Killing Fields, Cambodia is now better known for its splendid ruins at Angkor Wat. Cambodia has now established itself as a must-visit country on the South-east Asian tourist trail.
From the point of view of the visitor, Cambodia has many attractions. With its amazing history, both ancient and modern, its natural beauty, friendly people, this small and fascinating country has much to offer, whether you visit to snap photographs, to start a business or to disseminate aid in its various forms to a deserving poor. Along its path to the present day, Cambodia’s recent history has been filled with long periods of anguish and despair. Even before the Khmer Rouge began their reign of terror, Cambodia was already torn by conflict, despite the efforts of its one-time king-turned prime minister, Norodom Sihanouk, to maintain the country’s neutrality and peace.
Sihanouk is probably Cambodia’s best-known contemporary political figure. Few leaders in the present world have presided over such tumultuous times. The second half of the 20th century in Cambodia saw the defeat of European colonialism, the rise of communism, the South-east Asian war with America, the takeover of Cambodia by the communist Khmer Rouge, and their subsequent defeat by the North Vietnamese army. During this march of history, Cambodia was at war with itself and with foreign powers for the better part of 30 years.
Since then, the focus of global disputation has shifted from South-east Asia to the Middle East. The major force driving geo-politics in the first decade of the new millennium is no longer the competition between the econo-political ideologies of communism and capitalism, but the contest to control diminishing resources such as oil. By the end of the 20th century, South-east Asia, including Cambodia, has largely become a zone of peace, perhaps even the ‘oasis of peace’ which Sihanouk sought for most of his life.
Cambodia is still rundown, recovering from its exhausting history. The recipient of much aid in recent years, the country still cannot stand on its own feet. The resources of the outside world people, talents and funds are still needed to help the old nation rebuild and the new nation emerge.
Cambodia appreciates its visitors. Whatever the reason for your visit, you are sure to be welcome in this very friendly country. ‘Visit Cambodia Year’ may have ended at the end of 2003, but many Cambodians would like to make ‘Visit Cambodia Year’ a permanent fixture.

First Impressions



Buddhist monks crossing a lake in front of a temple. Religion plays an important role in the lives of the Cambodians and monks are well-respected in the society

Contents Recent History: a Thumbnail Sketch The Country In the Countryside A Closed Society Opens Up

Cambodia

‘If a tiger lies down, don’t believe the tiger is showing respect.’
Cambodian Proverb
Back to the Future
At the close of the 13th century, the mighty Khmer Empire centred at Angkor Wat in present-day Cambodia, stretched from the Bay of Bengal to the South China Sea. It included much of present-day Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Cambodia’s power had reached its zenith. The country was prosperous and advanced. Irrigation water from a network of canals nourished the rice paddies. People planted and harvested their crops by hand and drove oxen to plough the fields. Barefoot monks in saffron robes at temples in each village supplied the community its inspiration, culture, administration and education.
At first glance, it might seem little has changed. The Cambodian country is still a predominantly agricultural society. The bulk of the population lives in the countryside. Crops are sown and harvested largely by hand. Saffron-clad monks mingle with the population. Even the smallest village is sited near a temple.
Such a state of affairs might suggest little has disturbed the tranquillity of Cambodian life for centuries. Nothing could be further from the truth of course. Anyone with a passing knowledge of South-east Asian history has heard of the killing fields, the Khmer Rouge, the Indo-Chinese wars of the 1960s and 1970s and a landmine problem that persists till today. Within the living memory of many of its inhabitants, Cambodia has been one of the most traumatised countries on the planet. Only in the past few years has Cambodia returned to the relatively peaceful conditions that prevailed centuries before.
While the culture shock experienced by expats is the principal theme of this book, Cambodia in recent years has experienced its own culture shock at a level seen by few other countries. In the space of less than two generations, Cambodian culture has been trashed to an extent barely imaginable by people from more fortunate countries. Just about any Cambodian you meet can recount the death of a family member in some battle conducted on Cambodian soil.
Visitors experiencing culture shock from the minor inconveniences of modern-day Cambodia can take heart from the coping skills of Cambodians themselves. To their great credit, the Cambodian people are extraordinarily warm, friendly and obliging to their visitors, even to those from previously belligerent nations.
But the scars of war, both physical and psychological, remain. Cambodia has neither forgotten nor completely recovered from its troubled past. Perhaps to remind itself and the rest of the world that this must not be allowed to happen again, Cambodia has preserved the killing fields and detention centres that operated during the dark days of the Khmer Rouge even turning them into tourist attractions.

Recent History: a Thumbnail Sketch

A country is the product of its history. An underlying theme of its history in the last few hundred years has been Cambodia’s failure to make peace with its neighbours and countries further afield. No sooner had Cambodia rid itself of one meddling foreign influence than another made its presence felt. Over the past few centuries, the French, Japanese, Thais, Chinese, Russians, Americans and Vietnamese have all manipulated Cambodia one way or the other for their own ends.
Cambodia’s recent history perhaps commenced in 1863 when the French colonised what they viewed as a backward country. French colonial rule lasted until 1953 when Cambodia gained its independence. For a little more than a decade after that, the country enjoyed a period of prosperity.
But in the 1960s, the war clouds were gathering across the border in Vietnam. Prince Sihanouk, then Cambodia’s prime minister, tried to keep his country out of the escalating war in Vietnam, declaring his country neutral and describing Cambodia as ‘an oasis of peace’.
This turned out to be wishful thinking. Cambodia’s problem was location. In the 1960s, the country lay at what was the border between the communist and capitalist world: to its east was communist North Vietnam; to the south capitalist South Vietnam; to the west capitalist Thailand; to the north the small and ostensibly neutral country of Laos.
Capitalism and communism waged war in Cambodia from the late 1960s until the country fell to the Khmer Rouge communists in 1975. Khmer Rouge rule lasted until the regime’s former allies, the Vietnamese, invaded from the east to remove the Khmer Rouge from power. A Vietnamese- backed administration took over in 1979, but that wasn’t the end of the fighting. The Khmer Rouge retreated to bases on either side of the Thai border from which they continued their attacks on the Cambodian civilian population.
In all, Cambodia spent over 30 long years at war with itself and with the international community. These long decades of war shattered the country’s infrastructure, devastated its economy, destroyed its agriculture and killed millions of its citizens. All military activity in Cambodia finally came to an end in 1999 when the last remnants of the Khmer Rouge laid down their arms after the death of their leader Pol Pot. After that, peace returned to Cambodia.

The Country

Siesta time in Phnom Penh

Cambodia is situated entirely in the tropics, lying between latitudes 11° and 15° north. Tucked between Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, Cambodia is the third smallest country in South-east Asia after Singapore and Brunei. At 181,040 sq km (69,900 sq miles) Cambodia is slightly larger than England and Wales combined. The country is roughly square in shape and measures about 580 km (360 miles) from east to west and about 450 km (280 miles) from north to south with the capital, Phnom Penh, near the centre. To the south, the approximately 440 km (273 miles) of mostly unspoiled coastline looks onto the Gulf of Thailand.
The countryside features stretches of magnificent tropical rainforest, in some places, neat villages tucked between green paddy fields in others. Covering about half the country’s area, the Mek